“I think it’s Provost.”

I thought for a minute. “You think we can catch him?”

Grant said, “Where’s the rifle?”

“We lost it with Lee,” I said, thinking I probably should have picked it up. I consoled myself by believing it had been damaged in the explosion. “Who has the handgun?”

Looking around, I found it on the kitchen counter. I grabbed it, checked the ammunition. Still full.

“Can you use it?” Tina said.

“I’d have to get out in the open—he’d get me before I got him,” I said.

Jeffrey said, “So that’s it? We’re talking about killing him?”

I said, “I think we’re firmly in them-or-us territory. As nice as it would be to see them convicted of murder, they’re not going to sit still for that.”

Jeffrey looked at Grant. When the psychic spoke, he sounded unhappy. Maybe he dealt with enough death that he didn’t want to go around causing it. “You have a spell for this? Maybe some of the hypnotism?”

“I’d need to use my hands,” Grant said, moving to the window. “Where?”

Jeffrey told him, describing the place at the edge of the clearing, near Valenti’s old spot.

“What is it you keep saying, Kitty?” the magician said. “Flush them out?”

“Who gets the short straw on that one?” I said.

“What if you went out the back? Then shifted to your wolf form and came at him from behind? He’s looking for people coming out the front.”

I had so many arguments against that plan. It was a horrible plan. As hyped up as I was at the moment, I couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t turn wolf and head for the hills, never to be seen again. I might try to join that pack of wild wolves we’d run into. Then again, I was pissed off enough that I might be all too happy to go after Provost and tear him to shreds. But if I didn’t kill him, if he didn’t die—I never wanted to be responsible for infecting another person with this disease. Even someone like Provost. Especially someone like him. Homicidal bastard as werewolf? Bad scene, there.

“You’re not saying anything,” Grant said.

“I think you’re overestimating my ability to follow a plan once I shift.”

“What if you didn’t follow a plan? What if you just ran, got out of here, and went for help?” Jeffrey said. “Even if you didn’t remember what you were doing as a wolf, you’d remember when you woke up, right?”

“Assuming I didn’t run up against silver razor wire or get caught in another insane trap.” The whole lodge had become a trap, of course.

“I keep expecting them to attack the lodge,” Grant murmured. “We don’t have anywhere else to go.”

That, more than any other reason, was why we had to do something. If we didn’t, they would.

“I don’t have to be a wolf to flush him out,” I said. “But are we scaring him, catching him, or killing him?”

Nobody answered until Conrad said from the sofa, “Do we have a choice?”

I had killed to protect me and mine before. I could do it again. I drew the handgun from my pocket, checked the chamber and safety one more time. Loaded with silver bullets, of course, which made me twitch. But Provost and his party hadn’t brought along any other kind, apparently. I felt horribly ostentatious doing the checking—bad action-film girl, right here.

“Distract him,” I said. “Keep him looking out front. Make him think he can get a shot off.” Then I’d sneak up from behind. It was a Cormac-grade plan.

I left them and went to the back door. Quietly opened it. Didn’t make a sound. Stepped out.

And fell back as the wall beside me exploded. Another gunshot blasted as I slammed shut the door and hunched on the floor.

Grant, Tina, and Jeffrey came running.

“Cabe,” I said, picking myself up, checking myself over. Some scratches from flying splinters marked my arm, but I could handle that. Just as long as nothing silver touched me, I’d be fine.

Tina huffed, turning away in a show of frustration. “So they’re waiting us out.”

“We have to think of something,” Grant said. He started pacing, slow, moderate steps. He winced with pain.

Jeffrey was looking at the front door. “I want to try something. Kitty, can you stay out of sight?”

“What are you going to do?” I said.

“Just don’t let Provost see you through the window.”

He went to the front door and opened it.

Tina gasped and reached after him. “Jeffrey, don’t!”

Jeffrey called out, so the man in the trees could hear, “Joey! We want to make a deal! Let’s talk!”

Grant joined Tina by the front door to listen. Still holding the gun, I crouched nearby, under the window.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Grant demanded.

Jeffrey kept calling. “You’ve made your point! Cabe just shot Kitty out back—”

I thought I saw where this was going. I ducked and listened.

“Except for the vampire in the basement, the monsters are all gone. The rest of us are human. We know this is all about the monsters. If you let us go, the four of us will walk away. We’ll leave the vampire to you.”

It just might work.

The thing was, Provost and Cabe couldn’t let anybody walk away. They’d already killed their witnesses, the show’s assistants. But maybe he didn’t know that we knew that. Jeffrey was good with people. Maybe he really could lure him into the open. All I needed was a clear shot…

“Conrad and Odysseus are hurt. We need to get to a hospital. We just want to talk to you, Joey. Stay there if you want, but talk to me.”

A long moment passed. This wasn’t going to work. Provost was in communication with Cabe, who might or might not have seen whether he actually shot me. I wanted to yell to Jeffrey to get back inside.

From the trees, Provost yelled, “The werewolf bitch is really dead?”

Jeffrey hesitated, but it didn’t sound like a man about to lie. It sounded like fear, grief, helplessness. All things we were feeling anyway. “Death by silver bullet isn’t pretty. But I’m sure you know that.”

Provost’s answer was filled with mirth, with victory. “You’re a dead man, Jeffrey Miles. You’re all dead.”

Provost appeared, moving out from behind the shelter of a pine tree. Like Valenti, he had transformed himself from the slick Hollywood guy. He wore black fatigues, a belt holster—gun in place, I noted—a knife at his belt, combat boots.

In seconds I’d have a shot. I was lining him up. Jeffrey said over his shoulder, “Don’t shoot him. He’s not holding a weapon. I want to see where this goes.”

He had better be right about this.

“Just tell me why,” Jeffrey said. “I keep trying to understand this.”

When Provost smiled, it was a slanted, wicked expression. “There’s nothing to understand. None of you is human. You, the psychic bitch, the magician, the atheist. You’re still monsters. The things you do? Makes you all witches. And you ought to be burned!”

Atheist? I had to assume he was talking about Conrad, who didn’t have a magical cell in his body. I glanced at Conrad and muttered, “Since when does being an atheist make someone a monster?”

“It does to the kind of people who threaten to burn witches,” he said. “Trust me, I’ve heard this line before.”

Provost was still ranting. “We wanted to see if we could kill monsters. Turns out we can, and we’re going to show the world how to do it,” he said. He walked toward the lodge now, casually, step by step. Carelessly, almost. He had to know we had the weapons we’d taken from Valenti. Maybe he really thought Jeffrey didn’t have it in him to shoot anyone. But Jeffrey didn’t have to.

“Ron Valenti doesn’t agree with you,” Jeffrey said, and Provost stopped walking. “In fact, he’s pretty upset.”

Provost said, “You haven’t really talked to him.”

Jeffrey shrugged. “You might as well burn this place to the ground, because it’s going to be very haunted when this is all over. Then again, all that negative energy doesn’t need a place to anchor to. It’s hanging over you, Joey.”